If you don’t understand any aspect of the assignment, don’t be afraid to ask your instructor directly. It’s better to get an explanation about something than to assume you know what it means and later find out your assumption was incorrect.
For example, suppose your instructor assigned a research paper about a “public health concern. " You might make a list that included such public health concerns as teenage vaping, anti-vaxxers, and drunk driving. From your list, choose one area in particular that you want to look at. This is where you’ll start your research. For the purposes of this example, assume you chose to research vaping among teenagers.
If you’re doing a general internet search on your topic and not getting back many strong results, there may not be enough information out there for you to research that topic. This is typically rare, though, unless you’ve started off with a topic that’s too narrow. For example, if you want to study vaping in your high school, you might not find enough sources. However, if you expanded your search to include all high schools in your state, you might have more luck. If you’re not very knowledgeable about your topic, look for a resource that will provide a general overview, so you can become more familiar with possible questions you could answer in your research paper.
For example, if you wanted to look at teenagers and vaping, you might decide to ask “Are teenagers who vape more likely to smoke than teenagers who don’t?” How you frame your question also depends on the type of paper you’re writing. For example, if you were writing a persuasive research essay, you would need to make a statement, and then back that statement up with research. For example, instead of asking if teenagers who vape are more likely to smoke than teenagers who don’t, you might say “Teenagers who vape are more likely to start smoking. "
Look at the number of results you get, as well as the quality of the sources. You might also try an academic search engine, such as Google Scholar, to see how much academic material is out there on your chosen question.
For example, if you’ve selected teenagers who vape, the “who” would be teenagers. If a search of that topic yields too much information, you might scale it back by looking at a specific 5-year period (the “when”) or only at teenagers in a specific state (the “where”). If you needed to broaden your question on the same topic, you may decide to look at teenagers and young adults under the age of 25, not just teenagers.
1- to 2-page paper: 2 to 3 webpages or short journal articles 3- to 5-page paper: 4 to 8 journals or scholarly articles, webpages, or books 5- to 10-page paper: 6 to 15 journals or scholarly articles, webpages, or books 10- to 15-page paper: 12 to 20 journals or scholarly articles, webpages, or books
For example, if you’re researching the prevalence of vaping among teenagers, you might also include “adolescents” and “youth” as synonyms for teenagers, along with “tobacco use” or “e-cigarettes” as synonyms for vaping. Take advantage of academic databases available online through your school in addition to the internet.
Currency: How recent is the information? When was the source last updated? Reliability: Are there references for facts and data? Is the content mostly opinion? Authority: Who is the creator of the content? Who is the publisher? Are they biased in any way? Does the creator have academic credentials in the field? Accuracy: Has the content been peer-reviewed or edited by a third party? Is the information supported by evidence? Can you easily verify facts in another source? Purpose/Perspective: Is the content intended to teach you something or to sell you something? Is the information presented biased?
If an author mentions a particular source more than once, you definitely want to read that material. The reference list typically contains enough information for you to find the source on your own. If you find that you can’t access the source, for example because it’s behind a paywall, talk to your school or a public librarian about it. They may be able to get you access.
List the citation information for the source at the top of the card, then take notes in your words. Include the page numbers (if applicable) that you would use in your citation. If you copy something directly from the source, put quote marks around those words and write the page number (if applicable) where that quote appears. You may also want to distinguish quotes even further, for example, by having quotes in a different color text than your words. This will help protect you against accidental plagiarism.
Include columns for the full citation and in-text citation for each of your sources. Provide a column for your notes and add them to your spreadsheet. If you have direct quotes, you might include a separate column for those quotes. Many word-processing apps have citation features that will allow you to input a new source from a list, so you only have to type the citation once. With a spreadsheet, you can simply cut and paste.
For example, if you were writing a paper on teenagers and vaping, you may have notes related to the age teenagers started vaping, the reasons they started vaping, and their exposure to tobacco or nicotine before they started vaping. If you used a digital note-taking app, you typically would categorize your notes by adding tags to them. Some notes may have more than one tag, depending on the information it covered.
For example, suppose your research indicated that teenagers who vaped were more likely to switch to regular cigarettes if someone in their household smoked. The category covering teenage vapers’ exposure to tobacco or nicotine before they started vaping would most likely be the first thing you talked about in your paper, assuming you wanted to put the strongest evidence first.
Unless your instructor has specific requirements for your outline, you can make it as detailed or as simple as you want. Some people prefer full sentences in their outlines, while others have sections with just a word or two. Working through the outline methodically can help you identify information that you don’t have yet that you need to support your thesis or answer your research question.
Even at this late stage, don’t be afraid to change your question to more accurately frame your research. Because of your research, you know a lot more about the topic than you did when you first wrote your question, so it’s natural that you would see ways to improve it.
For example, when outlining your paper about teenagers and vaping, you may realize that you don’t have any information on how teenagers access e-cigarettes and whether that access is legal or illegal. If you’re writing a paper about teenagers vaping as a public health concern, this is information you would need to know. It’s also likely that as you formulated your outline, you discovered that you didn’t need some sources you previously thought would be valuable. In that situation, you may need to seek more sources, especially if throwing out a source took you below the minimum number of sources required for your assignment.
